No single nation or entity is to blame for the “botched response” on the Ebola outbreak, said Michael Osterholm, Ph.D., M.P.H., the McKnight Presidential endowed chair and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, because “everyone is to blame.”
In his keynote speech during the fifth annual DMU Research Symposium on Dec. 4, which filled the Student Education Center Auditorium and two overflow lecture halls, he said the failures include very slow and stingy efforts by world leaders to combat the disease and wildly inaccurate estimates of its occurrence by health care organizations.
“I know less about Ebola today than I did six months ago,” Osterholm said. “And anybody in the Ebola world that doesn’t honestly say that, be careful about anything they may offer you as fact.”
He described some of the cultural, political, economic and environmental factors that are impeding efforts to control the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. One of the central problems has been the poor condition of health care facilities in the region, home to the largest Ebola outbreak in history. Underfunded facilities have failed to contain the disease, leading to both patient deaths and infection of health care workers.
“There are health care facilities with two pairs of gloves and one needle,” Osterholm said. “Health care workers have gone on strike because in some cases they aren’t getting paid or they had no gloves.”
“I know less about Ebola today than I did six months ago,” Osterholm said. “And anybody in the Ebola world that doesn’t honestly say that, be careful about anything they may offer you as fact.”
The hands-on funeral traditions of West African hot-spot countries helped spread the disease, too. “In Liberia, twice a year people spend the whole day on the graves of their ancestors,” he said. “When the order was issued to cremate all bodies, that led to secret burials.”
The disease’s fear factor has caused borders, businesses and schools, as well as hospitals, to close, which — on top of government corruption in the region — could spark food shortages, increased terrorist activity and further destabilization of West Africa. “Health security is as big an issue as military security,” Osterholm said.
At the same time, as humans continue to encroach on African jungles, they will increasingly encounter non-human primates, bats and other animals considered the virus’s primary reservoir. That likely will boost infection rates. People traveling from other countries to work in West Africa’s gold mines and plantations also could “seed” Ebola beyond the region, Osterholm said.
Key to stopping the disease is developing and distributing an effective vaccine. “I’m convinced we could have that soon if we get our act together” with funding and international cooperation, he noted. Two promising vaccine candidates are being tested.
“Stay tuned — I’m convinced there are more surprises ahead,” he concluded.
